


Tricks and Treats

by Wordsplat



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Getting Together, Halloween, Humor, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-07
Updated: 2012-11-07
Packaged: 2017-11-18 04:10:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,377
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/556763
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wordsplat/pseuds/Wordsplat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Starkoween is totally a holiday, though it's mostly an excuse to eat candy, get drunk, and scare the shit out of people. Also, costumes are a Very Important Decision, fangs are fun, and Clint dressing as cupid could really only go one way.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tricks and Treats

"Barton, I know exactly where you're aiming that arrow and I suggest you redirect it before I do it for you—someplace the sun don't shine."

"Sheesh. So aggressive, Stark." Clint just grinned, redirecting the bright red, heart-shaped arrow away from Tony's ass and off over his shoulder, hitting the bell of the store with a loud ringing sound. "Alright, these shoot good, I'm satisfied."

"Shoot well," Steve corrected absently. He exited the nearest changing stall, making a mildly embarrassed gesture to himself. "So, uh. Thoughts?"

Tony examined him appreciatively, Clint looked horrified, while Thor grinned his approval. Nothing unusual there, since Tony was always teasing him with looks like that, Clint leaned towards the over-dramatic, and Thor thought everyone looked great in everything. He was good for a self-esteem boost, but not so much when it came to actually making a decision. Steve looked to Bruce, his saner teammate; he looked thoughtful, considering, and Steve started to doubt his choice.

"What? What's wrong with it?"

"Wow." Natasha blinked, turning from where she'd been 'persuading' the cashier to put away their phone. "Black hair and you're a dead ringer, Cap."

"You think?" Steve turned, examining the Superman costume in the full-length mirror.

Less than a week left until Halloween, and they were  _still_  working on costumes. They'd been putting it off for weeks, partially because shopping in public was a hassle—Steve hesitated to call them celebrities, it felt so flip when the work they did was so important, but they certainly weren't unknowns—and partially because they'd been incredibly busy preparing the Tower for the Halloween party Tony and Clint had cooked up to celebrate their first Halloween as an official team. The two of them went a little crazy for decorations, while Bruce and Natasha were heavily invested in the complexly terrifying haunted house they'd created out of the basement levels. Thor had impressive, surprising skill when it came to carving pumpkins and took a pleasure in it that would've been concerning had it been anyone but Thor. Steve just enjoyed getting swept up in everyone else's plans; he'd gone to buy candy and supplies with Tony, helped hang decorations with Clint, made scary-themed food with Bruce, and plenty else. It was great fun, fantastic team-building, and just a little spooky. Steve was loving it.

Clint was heading up to the register to buy the cupid costume now, so Steve did a group check. Thor was still keen on the Greek-style toga he'd found earlier, so Bruce seemed busy at work on behalf of the team persuading him to wear underwear with his costume. Thor was a pretty rational guy about most things, but absolutely could not seem to grasp Earth's preoccupations with clothing. Bruce himself already had a costume tucked away at home, which left only Natasha and Tony, who were still indecisively flicking through various racks.

"You work the spandex as well as always, Cap." Tony shot him a teasing leer. "But I'm afraid I'm going to have to cite team loyalty here."

"Yeah, you can't mix spandex," Clint called from the register, "SHIELD even reserves the right to fire your ass for it."

"You're thinking of the fraternization rules," Natasha corrected him absently.

"Oh." Clint frowned. "We have fraternization rules?"

"Yes." Natasha didn't look away from the racks, examining the material of a Cher costume. "Just like we had an annual sexual harassment seminar to attend this morning."

Tony snorted, elbowing Steve. "How many shades of red did this one turn?"

"I, er." Steve rubbed a hand over the back of his neck. "There was unfortunately other important Avengers business to attend to, I couldn't quite make it."

"Look who's skipping class." Tony grinned, not fooled in the least. "I'm rubbing off on you, aren't I?"

"God help us all," Natasha muttered.

"You're not rubbing off on me." Such a lie. "There was other business that required my attention."

Hey, it wasn't like he was going to go putting the moves on his colleagues anyway. Just his teammates. One teammate. If he ever found the courage.

"You spent all morning making orange and black streamers with me for Starkoween." Tony snorted.

"Team bonding is very important, Tony," Steve informed him.

"Even if Starkoween still isn't a thing." Natasha rolled her eyes.

"My tower, my titles." Tony dismissed her lack of enthusiasm, nicking a zombie suit off the rack and examining it. "What do think, Steve?"

"What's that, a zombie?" Steve peered at it. Zombies were slow and unintelligent, two of the last things he'd ever associate with Tony Stark. "Isn't that sort of…boring, for you?"

"We need to get you hooked on Walking Dead." Tony grinned. "Think bloodier. Think…cracking skulls and sucking out the brains."

Steve gave a half-nod half-shrug of approval. "That could be interesting."

"Yeah, I can see you sucking head, Stark," Clint snickered. Tony chucked the nearest object at him, a packet of fake fangs.

"Suck thi—oh!" Tony grabbed another packet while Clint ducked the first. "I got it! Classic."

Six days, five Halloween stores, four fist fights, three returned costumes, two supervillain attacks, and at least a million dollars in damages, decorations, and costumes later, it was the night before Halloween. Steve was headed to the rec room, exhausted after their final day of shopping. He had eventually decided on werewolf, and bought a rather convincing costume as well as a pair of fake fangs to go with.

Steve was surprised to note that no one was in the rec room, a rare occurrence. He scooped up the prized remote, and held it up valiantly.

"Thanks, snookums." Tony appeared out of nowhere, plucking the remote right from Steve's hand with a grin before collapsing on the couch bonelessly.

"Tony."

"No."

"You got it last time," Steve pointed out, making a grab for it. Tony held it away from him, already clicking over to his stupid CSI show.

"Mmm…still no."

"You made me watch Teen Wolf with you last night, it's definitely my turn."

"You love Teen Wolf." Tony snorted, not buying Steve's act for a moment.

"No,  _you_ love Teen Wolf," Steve protested.

It was a half-hearted complaint at best. Teen Wolf provided an hour a week wherein he could curl up on the couch with his very attractive best friend and watch other very attractive, often half-naked men run around; Steve was old-fashioned, he wasn't made of stone.

"Maybe if you kissed me or something." Tony shot him a charming, flirtatious smile, like he did far too often for Steve's comfort.

"What?"

"You want the remote, yeah?"

"Yeah."

"Well, the cost is a kiss."

It was the look in Tony's eyes that did it, bright and challenging, like he didn't believe for a second Steve would concede to his terms. In a flash, Steve rolled on top of him, straddling his lap and pressing both of his wrists against the couch. He leaned in, inhaling the metal and musk that clung to Tony nearly always, lips hovering just above his mark.

"Give me the…" he began, but his words were lost as Tony exhaled shakily, Adam's apple bobbing as he swallowed.

Tony's eyes, expressive as always, mapped Steve's face like he'd never seen it before and he'd never see it again. They went wide as he trailed across Steve's jaw, slowed over his lips, caught in his eyes. Steve couldn't look away. Any signs of teasing were gone completely as Tony just stared back up him, compliant and exposed in a way Steve had never seen him before.

It would be so easy.

The remote hit the couch cushion with a soft thump. Brought back to earth by the sound, Steve felt his heart bottom out somewhere into the pit of his stomach and he took the easy way out, snatching up the remote and holding it aloft.

"Thank you," he crowed triumphantly, if a touch breathlessly.

"What?" Confusion flickered over Tony's face, before he caught sight of what Steve was holding. He shoved him off his lap with force, a scandalized look his face. "You cheated!"

Instead of falling off Tony's lap and therefore onto the hard floor, Steve wriggled enough to go sideways, on his back across the couch. Tony followed him immediately, crawling over Steve to get his hands on the remote again.

"Captain America, lying, cheating remote thief," he grouched, nearly clipping Steve in the face with an elbow. "America will be so disappointed in you."

"You said kiss or something," Steve pointed out, using one hand to keep Tony at bay as the other held the remote as far away as he could.

"Think you're gonna get off that easy?" Tony tackled Steve in the chest with as much force as he could muster, reaching both arms around him to stretch for the remote. "I'm just getting started with you—"

"Oh, great,  _that's_ started." Steve recognized Clint's voice, but by the time he got his head above the couch, the archer had already spun around and was fast-walking out of the room.

"What's started?" Steve called, but Clint didn't answer him. He asked Tony instead, confused, "Where's he going?"

"Uh." Tony cleared his throat. Steve could see the back of his neck going a little red, which was both new and immensely interesting. Tony released him, uncomfortably scooting off Steve and back until there was at least a foot of space between them. "You realize that from the doorway it's entirely possible it doesn't look like we were wrestling for a remote."

"Oh." Steve had had a leg up in the air, and Tony's head was probably the only other part of their bodies that had been visible.

"Don't freak out, it's okay, I'll tell him to get his mind out of the gutter," Tony offered, leaving almost as quickly as Clint.

"I'm not—" Steve started, but Tony was already gone. He sighed. "I'm not freaking out."

Steve was left with the remote, but his victory felt a little hollow.

The Tower was truly a sight to behold.

Every outside inch had been covered in decorations, things like sticky spiders and painted cobwebs and glow-in-the-dark ghosts covering the paneling. Spooky carved pumpkins were strewn across the front entrance, and the flying techno-bats Tony had programmed to circle Tower were a nice touch. The outside was child-friendly; they were too public not to get young trick-or-treaters, and scaring them off would be horrible. The first floor was the designated party floor, and therefore spooky with a couple of "gotcha" gags lying in wait, but nothing over the top. It was the haunted house that was designed to terrify, and Bruce and Natasha had outdone themselves. There was a very large, very serious warning sign, and for good reason: Steve himself had only had the heart to go through about a quarter of it, but he knew the neighborhood teens were getting a kick out of it.

Natasha had ended up as a spider, all black silk and long nails and bright red lips. She took to hiding in cobwebbed corners of the haunted house, scaring the living daylights out of even the most hardened of adults. Bruce was the final scare, dressed as Dr. Frankenstein. He sat at the back end of the haunted house portion, next to the elevator that returned guests upstairs. He was bent over a fake lab bench, pretending to be furiously at work. He'd rigged a special effects field around where he lay in wait, so that when they stepped towards him to try and get to the elevator a holograph popped up, making it look as if Bruce had thrown his work down and angrily transformed into the Hulk. The hologram would charge towards the guests with a great roar, only to disappear with a pop when it caught them, surely leaving a successfully terrified visitor. Bruce was rather proud of himself, even if Tony had helped a bit with the holographics.

The party was already in full swing, the music booming and the dance floor full. Anyone who stopped by was welcome to stay, and they'd invited the few "normal" friends they had. Pepper, Happy, and Rhodey had each made appearances, along with Jane and Darcy, Dr. Selvig, and Bruce's girlfriend, Betty. Phil had even stopped by with some of his new team—Steve remembered the introductions vaguely at best, but they'd seemed nice—and was wearing what was hands down the most realistic replication of Steve's original Captain America suit he'd ever seen. He was flattered, though he supposed it wasn't much of a surprise at this point. Clint nudged Steve and told him not to take it too personally, that Phil had been Captain America every Halloween since the dawn of time. Steve assumed he was kidding, until Natasha nodded her head seriously.

Thor, who had changed his mind four more times before settling on a mock Viking costume, doled out candy at the front door with Jane, a job he loved and went about with great enthusiasm. Clint had stuck with his cupid costume, a Greek-esque, angel-looking sort of thing. It came with a pink plastic bow and a quiver of heart-shaped arrows, and though they did fire off fine, Clint found them offensive to his skills. Since he refused to dye "Babyhawk"—his bow—or "The Bitches"—his arrows—pink, he'd demanded Tony build him a new set just for Halloween. Tony had declared it a waste of his time; Clint had promised that if he did, he'd say Happy Starkoween to each and every visitor. By the very next day, he'd been presented with a functional pink bow and set of rubber heart-shaped arrows that he could fire at visitors to his heart's content without injury. Clint had quickly dubbed the set Pinky-Pie and the Heart-Breakers. Tony had accused Clint of watching My Little Pony, Clint had accused Tony of watching Teen Wolf, and they'd argued a while over the integrity of their guilty pleasures, but no fists, arrows, or repulsor blasts had been involved so Steve was satisfied.

As a result, today Clint divided his time between wishing guests a rather begrudging "Happy Starkoween" and hiding in high places to shoot people with his love arrows. Though Natasha had told Clint to knock it off before disappearing into the haunted house for the night, the guests found it both hilarious and endearing so Steve hadn't enforced it. The recipients of Clint's shots often even exchanged a kiss to please the crowd. Steve personally thought it all seemed rather embarrassing, but to Clint's credit, he hadn't been wrong yet. All the people he shot, couples or not, were all too eager to kiss even if there was a bit of blushing afterwards.

Tony was a vampire, fangs and all, and divided his time between chatting with Steve and racing about restocking candy, because the stuff going faster than any of them could've imagined. Luckily, Tony had all but literally bought out a couple of candy stores, so they were good up to and including the apocalypse. Steve mostly handed out candy with Thor, reminded Clint not to aim at people's faces, and tried not to stare at Tony too noticeably.

It was harder than it should have been.

"Ow." Steve frowned as something zinged off his backside. It didn't hurt exactly, but it had been rather pointy. "What the—?"

"—fuck was that?" Tony finished his sentence, though perhaps a touch more colorfully, and picked up one of the heart-shaped arrows off the ground by his foot. "Barton, so help me…"

Steve heart fluttered a bit. He glanced up disbelievingly to the top of the fridge, where Clint was currently perched. The crowd was beginning to chant, led of course by none other than a very drunk Darcy, making noises that were rather inappropriate for what was supposed to be just a peck.

"Kiss, kiss, kiss!"

"You shot a love arrow at me and Steve?" Tony demanded, "We talked about this you asshole, it wasn't like that."

Tony was busy scowling up at Clint, but Steve only had eyes for Tony. He was playing it blasé, but his fingers were tapping along the side of his thigh. He only ever did that when he was nervous, when he was seeking something to poke or prod or pick apart and distract himself with.

"Yes, you and Steve." Clint grinned from ear to ear in answer to Tony's question. "The almighty Cupid has spoken! Doth thou doubt-eth my gaydar-eth powers?"

"Little much," Natasha noted, pouring herself a shot.

"Gaydar-eth?" Clint checked.

"Gaydar-eth," Natasha confirmed.

Steve shuffled his feet. When was Clint going to shut up?

"Fine! Thou doth question my love-making powers!"

"Sounds like they're questioning your abilities in bed," Bruce pointed out from across the kitchen.

Steve made a frustrated, impatient little noise in the back of his throat. Why wouldn't Tony look at him?

"Like  _that's_ a question. I am a fantastic lay, obviously," Clint declared. Natasha snorted. "Not the point. What's the word I'm looking for here?"

"Match-making?" Pepper suggested, entering the kitchen to fill up one of the candy bowls for the umpteenth time.

"That's it. Thou art questioning my—"

"Oh, shut up," Steve blurted at last, crossing the little space left between him and Tony in two steps.

Tony had clearly not at all anticipated an enthusiastic supersoldier plastered to his mouth at that particular moment, but let it never be said that he couldn't go with the flow. There was a brief moment of no response where only determination to see the kiss through kept Steve from panicking, then there was a very firm hand in his hair and a tongue in his mouth and oh, hey, there he was.

"Why do I always seem to enter at the strangest possible moment?" Pepper sighed.

Tony made a face.

"What? Nothing personal," Pepper quickly added, "Congratulations, of course. Stop giving me that face, Tony, it was just an odd moment to walk into the conversation—"

"Not you." Tony waved her off, still making the face. He maneuvered his tongue around in his mouth with great concentration for a moment before sticking it out, proudly presenting a little white plastic triangle. "Ad-ah!"

"Gross." It was Clint's turn to make a face as Tony plucked it off his tongue.

"Is that…?" Steve paused, running his own over his teeth. Oh.

"Proof that I made out with a werewolf." Tony grinned, holding up the plastic fang that had been previously attached to Steve's canine.

"Oops."

"Let's hope they're more careful with their condoms," Natasha remarked, face as poker-neutral as ever.

There was a brief moment of silence before absolutely uproarious laughter burst out, and Steve ran a hand over his face in embarrassment.

"That's dif—I wouldn't—we aren't even—" Steve spluttered a moment, unsure how to even begin to reply to that.

"For the record, 'oops' is not a good response," Pepper noted with a wry smile.

"Ignore them, they're all horrible." Tony rolled his eyes, grabbing Steve by the wrist and hauling him out of the room. " _I_ , however, think you're wonderful, and we should totally continue that thing we were doing a minute ago."

Tony turned down the hallway, tugging Steve along after him into the first empty room they came across. He made a show of looking up at Steve seductively, more teasing than actual seduction, but Steve felt the burn of climbing arousal all the same.

"You know the thing, with the tongue, and the teeth, and the—" Good Lord, was Tony still talking? Steve put an end to that, pinning him up against the wall with carefully concentrated force, lowering his mouth to rasp his one remaining fang over Tony's pulse. "Oh, hey, that, that's great too, that's  _oh, wow—"_

"This okay?" Steve hummed, though he could feel the pleased little shudder Tony gave, the way he dropped his shoulders to expose more of his neck.

"Okay?" Tony seemed incredulous that Steve even had to ask. A mischievous glint appeared in his eyes. "I'll show you okay."

Tony's own fake fangs found purchase on Steve's collarbone, and, well, there wasn't much talking after that.

Steve might've just found a new favorite holiday.


End file.
